Elvis is in the building!

Remember a long time ago, back when I set up my big fish tank? Remember how excited I was when I decided to go with cichlids because I'd never had them before and they are so pretty? Remember how very, very, very excited I was because I had gotten an electric blue that was going to be a bright, cobalt blue? I even named him Elvis, that's how excited I was. I don't remember if I ever updated the blogosphere as to how progressively disillusioned I became when Elvis refused to turn blue. I've waited for months now and nothing. Elvis has continued to stay a sad color of gray, with little blue lips. He kind of looks like he has heart problems now that I think about it. But I digress. I have been getting more and more disturbed by this issue. To the point that I have been on line searching desperately for when he's supposed to turn blue. Everything said "by now". But yet, he refused to get pretty. Finally, several days ago, a thought occurred to me that hadn't before. I checked on line. I checked my books. And today, I checked with the fish store. All were in agreement. Elvis had been misnamed. Because Elvis, was a girl. Whoops! So while I was at the fish store confirming my theory, I picked out a new Elvis to bring home. And the previous Elvis, well, she is now known as Priscilla.



Debt Diet -
Yesterday:
3 coffees and a Snickers bar at school $2.60
Computer software to help me pass the exam $43.13

Today:
Cat food - $34.58
Plants for fish tank, 2 algae eaters & Elvis - $72.38

Total for both days - $152.69

Pictures by Master J

I've been going through photographs the last few days and trying to sort them into their appropriate folders on my laptop so that I can eventually have some organization. Mister C started the whole thing when he took his version of the pictures and got rid of all of the duplicates, of which there were over 3500. So I've got some work ahead of me. But while I was going through, I started going through the folder where I've been dumping all the photos that Master J has taken over the years. And while there are a whole lot of not great photos, there are some that are pretty good. Up until his birthday last year, Master J would take my camera whenever he got the chance and go take a ton of pictures. I would usually know he was doing this, but sometimes I would be surprised when I downloaded the memory card and find pictures that he had taken. For his birthday last year, Mamoo & Papa got him his own digital camera and he has used it avidly. Anyway, I thought I'd throw a few of the better ones out here.

Okay, so he cut my head off and the lighting's not great, but at least he got me smiling.


Our photographer Matt, who is fantastic with Master J even though he doesn't have kids of his own. I think he grew up with a lot of brothers and that he may have had a little ADHD himself.


An out of place tulip in our garden in Nebraska, most likely taken last summer.


One of the peacocks that wander around the park where we got our family pictures taken the last two years. This one was taken in April 2007, about a month after Master J turned 6.


A pigeon at the same park, the same day.



Debt Diet - $0

Valentines Day

There are two camps of people regarding Valentines Day. Those that love it. And those that hate it. If you are a member of the first group, you'll probably want to stop reading right about now. I'm sure there's a love story drama on the Lifetime channel you can watch. I'll wait. Are they gone yet? Okay, I am a member of the second group. I absolutely cannot stand Valentines Day. I think it's the dumbest thing ever made up as far as holidays go. The biggest benefactor of the "holiday" is the stores that hype up this day as a "must do". The pressure to perform on this day is unbelievable to me. And I find it appalling that so many women make such a big deal out of this day. Worse yet, some of those women are willing to give up the opportunity for a nice day if they don't get the "right" gift(s) and treatment. They compare what they got with what their friends or co-workers got and mete out punishment or rewards to their significant other based on that. I would rather get flowers or a card on any other day of the year. Any. Other. Day. Of. The. Year. Because as far as I can tell, about 90% of men out there only do something on Valentines because they feel obligated to do so. I want my husband to send me flowers because he wants to, because he suddenly realized how much he loves me, because it's Tuesday. Not because he's supposed to. Because that takes all of the romance out of it. Which is kind of interesting when you think about the fact that this is supposed to be the "most romantic day of the year".



Debt Diet - Yeah, tough day at the ranch. Started out at Fourbucks, continued to the gas station, had to pay some fines at the library, then the grocery store and finally ended up at Chipolte. I guess two of them are at least budgeted for.
Fourbucks - $8.51
Gas - $28.41
Library - $4.41
Grocery - $183.71
Chipolte - $15.82
Total - $240.86

Also, there's a slight chance my coffee addiction may have gotten out of control. Guess I'll be on the caffeine diet next. I'll warn you ahead of time on that one. Wouldn't want anyone to get hurt.

School

After tomorrow's class, I will be half way through my real estate school. So far, I'm enjoying it quite a bit. I do need to re test myself again this weekend on what I've learned so far to make sure I'm learning all I need to for the exam. But mostly, I'm enjoying it. I've sat with the same three people since I started the class. One of them is on a three week plan and the other two are on the six week plan, but they started in January. Tomorrow is the last day for all of them and I'm actually going to miss them. I've really had fun getting to know them. They're all interesting people, from different walks of life. I hope that we can work together at some future date. I'm not really sure what I'm going to do once I'm in there by myself next week. Obviously there are other people in there, but if Monday's "horse" response is any indication, most of them aren't going to be nearly as interesting as these three have been.

Debt Diet: 2 coffees & M&Ms at school - $1.95

Debt Diet

I had real estate class today and, per usual, had two cups of coffee from the vending machine. For the record, I did make a second pot of coffee at home this morning so I could take some with me to class and avoid going to the machines. However, I forgot that Mister C is home this week. So when I went to get my handy travel mug filled up, there was not enough coffee to put in it, and not enough time to make more. So I did attempt to be debt diet conscious. I just didn't plan for the Mister C contingency. On the way to class I had an insane urge to go to Fourbucks coffee shop (wink, wink). Worse yet, I gave in to it. Worst of all, I got a bagel with cream cheese while I was there. Luckily for me, the service was so slow, so unenthusiastic and so pathetic that it completely turned me off from them for the future. I'm not saying I'll never go there again, but the experience today certainly didn't make me want to rush back.

Debt Diet

Fourbucks - $5.48
Vending machine - $1.30
Total $6.78

Citrus!

As you can see, the citrus crop is in. Mister C went out today and picked all of the citrus from our trees. He did this partly because the trees are starting to get their flowers for next years crop and partly because the temps are supposed to drop again this weekend. These are the grapefruit. The remaining ones. There were almost 70 left on the tree. Considering that we have been picking and eating them off of the tree since the week before Christmas and that the tree is only about 8 feet tall, I'd say that's a pretty good crop. The lemon and orange trees were only put in this past November so there were only a few dozen lemons and one lonely orange. But both new trees are covered in blossoms so next year should be a good one. I love living in the southwest!

And an update on Master J. He started his day throwing up and has been lying around all day doing not a whole lot of anything. Remember how his vaporizer decided to quit working the night before last? Well, since his cough had gotten worse last night and I couldn't take him out, I had Mamoo go out and purchase a new one for me and bring it by last night. With the distilled water that I had her purchase for it, I managed to spend $40 without ever leaving the house. Considering that the last one lasted as long as it did I won't lose any sleep over it.



Debt Diet
Yesterday - $40 - vaporizer & distilled water
Today - $23.73 - I went to get egg drop soup for Master J and ended up ordering lunch for Mamoo, Mister C, Master J & I. I almost forgot to get the soup.
Total - $63.73

A little of this, a little of that

Today's blog will be about playing catch up on what's going on. So here we go...

Today was my sixth real estate class, which makes me one third of the way through the entire course. Today's class was all about the relationship between the agent, the broker, the seller and the buyer. Bet you never thought that could take four and a half hours to sort out. You'll notice the extra coffee purchase in my debt diet summary at the bottom.

Master J did not get sent home from school today for being sick. He might have gotten close for his crappy attitude. Today was a tough day for him, and his teacher got the brunt of it unfortunately. His Mamoo (my mom) picked him up from school and got the remainder of his attitude. He was quite loving towards me by the time I got home so I guess I lucked out. His cough is no better and I figured out tonight just before putting him to bed that his humidifier has stopped working. I think we bought it when he was a baby, but since we've hardly ever used it I was kind of surprised at it's demise. I guess I'll be going out tomorrow and getting a new one.

The Hooligan needs to go back to the vet. The dissolving stitches they used don't seem to be dissolving. I checked the post op instructions again to see if I had screwed up by not bringing him back sooner and they very clearly say that there is no need to return for removal of stitches. It says that these stitches will dissolve on their own. Umm,no. No they won't. We're a week beyond the time frame where they should be gone and they are still hanging in there. At least there won't be a charge.

Debt Diet.

I forgot to put in yesterday's debt diet info. It was two cups of coffee at class: $1.30

Today:
Gas - $26.27
Coffee (x3) - $1.95
M&Ms - $.65

Total - $28.27 (today) + 1.30 (yest) = $30.17

The reason I have trouble typing most nights...

This is actually fairly mild compared to most nights. Usually, he is passed out with at least 1/3 of his body draped across the keyboard.








Debt Diet:
Petco - 26.03 - food for guinea pig & fish
Vending Machine - 1.30 for two coffees during real estate school
Police Dept - 10.00 for fingerprinting (for real estate license)
Total - 37.33